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hb pp. 27-28 Jehovah’s Witnesses—The Surgical/Ethical Challenge ***"Witnesses believe that blood removed from the body should be disposed of, so they do not accept autotransfusion of predeposited blood. Techniques for intraoperative collection or hemodilution that involve blood storage are objectionable to them. However, many Witnesses permit the use of dialysis and heart-lung equipment (non-blood-prime) as well as intraoperative salvage where the extracorporeal circulation is uninterrupted; the physician should consult with the individual patient as to what his conscience dictates. 2
The Witnesses do not feel that the Bible comments directly on organ transplants; hence, decisions regarding cornea, kidney, or other tissue transplants must be made by the individual Witness."
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w89 3/1 p. 30 Questions From Readers ***"This clearly rules out one common use of autologous blood—preoperative collection, storage, and later infusion of a patient’s own blood. In such procedure, this is what is done: Prior to elective surgery, some units of a person’s whole blood are banked or the red cells are separated, frozen, and stored. Then if it seems that the patient needs blood during or following surgery, his own stored blood can be returned to him. Current anxieties about blood-borne diseases have made this use of autologous blood popular. Jehovah’s Witnesses, though, DO NOT accept this procedure. We have long appreciated that such stored blood certainly is no longer part of the person. It has been completely removed from him, so it should be disposed of in line with God’s Law: "You should pour it out upon the ground as water."—Deuteronomy 12:24.
In a somewhat different process, autologous blood can be diverted from a patient to a hemodialysis device (artificial kidney) or a heart-lung pump. The blood flows out through a tube to the artificial organ that pumps and filters (or oxygenates) it, and then it returns to the patient’s circulatory system. Some Christians have permitted this if the equipment is not primed with stored blood. They have viewed the external tubing as elongating their circulatory system so that blood might pass through an artificial organ. They have felt that the blood in this closed circuit was still part of them and did not need to be ‘poured out.’"
For comparison, a story about a JW transplant
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g96 11/22 pp. 12-13 ‘It’s Only Temporary!’—My Life With Kidney Disease ***Since January 1981, I had been on the national list for a kidney transplant. I hoped that with a transplant my life would go back to the way it had been. Little did I know what lay ahead!
A phone call in mid-August informed us that a donor had been found. When I got to the hospital, at about 10 p.m., blood samples were taken to make sure I was a suitable match for the transplant. The kidney was made available by the family of a young man who had died in an accident earlier that day.
Surgery was scheduled for the following morning. Before the operation could be performed, a major issue had to be addressed, as I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and my Bible-trained conscience will not permit me to accept a blood transfusion. (Acts 15:28, 29) That first night the anesthesiologist came to see me. He urged me to agree to have blood available in the operating room, just in case. I said no.
"What am I supposed to do if something goes wrong? Let you die?" he asked.
"Do whatever else you have to do, but no blood is to be given to me, no matter what."
After he left, the surgeons came in. I discussed the same issue with them, and much to my relief, they agreed to operate without blood.
The three-and-a-half-hour operation went smoothly. The surgeon said that I lost very little blood. When I awoke in the recovery room, three things assaulted my senses—first hunger and thirst and then pain! But all of that faded into the background when I saw a bag on the floor, filling with a pinkish-yellow fluid. It was urine from my new kidney. I was finally putting out urine! When the catheter was removed from my bladder and I was able to urinate like anyone else, I was very happy.
My joy, however, was short-lived. Two days later I got depressing news—my new kidney was not working. I would have to resume dialysis in the hopes that it would give the new kidney time to kick in. I continued on dialysis for several weeks.
It was now mid-September, and I had been in the hospital nearly a month. The hospital was 50 miles [80 km] from my home, so it was difficult for my Christian brothers and sisters to visit me. I missed my congregation very much. I received tape recordings of the congregation meetings, but when I listened to them, I got all choked up. I spent many lonely hours talking to Jehovah God in prayer, asking him for the strength to keep on enduring"
